Mother of youngest theater victim: 'I don't know who I am'

The Associated Press

FILE - In this Jan. 13, 2015, file photo, Ian Sullivan holds up a collage memorializing his late 6-year-old daughter Veronica, who was killed in the 2012 Aurora movie theatre massacre, at Sullivan's home in Evergreen, Colo. Veronica was the youngest person killed in the attack. Her mother, Ashley Moser, thought she was taking her daughter to a cartoon movie and worried that Veronica would be frightened when she realized it was an action movie, friends said. Moser testified that she stood up to take her daughter out of the theater when the shooting started, but Veronica’s hand slipped out of hers. Moser said she then felt a pain in her chest and fell, unable to move. Moser was left paralyzed and suffered a miscarriage. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 13, 2015, file photo, Ian Sullivan holds up a collage memorializing his late 6-year-old daughter Veronica, who was killed in the 2012 Aurora movie theatre massacre, at Sullivan's home in Evergreen, Colo. Veronica was the youngest person killed in the attack. Her mother, Ashley Moser, thought she was taking her daughter to a cartoon movie and worried that Veronica would be frightened when she realized it was an action movie, friends said. Moser testified that she stood up to take her daughter out of the theater when the shooting started, but Veronica’s hand slipped out of hers. Moser said she then felt a pain in her chest and fell, unable to move. Moser was left paralyzed and suffered a miscarriage. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File) (The Associated Press)

SADIE GURMAN Associated Press

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — The Colorado movie theater massacre robbed Ashley Moser of her 6-year-old daughter, her unborn child and even her identity.

"I don't know who I am anymore, 'cause I was a mom when I was 18, and that's all I knew how to be," Moser told jurors Wednesday.

She spoke slowly and tearfully from the wheelchair she has used since James Holmes' bullets left her paralyzed. Her brief testimony was the last in a two-day litany of grief and loss as prosecutors tried to persuade jurors that death, not life without parole, is the appropriate punishment.

Jurors will begin deliberating the sentence Thursday or Friday, after prosecutors and defense attorneys make their last round of closing arguments.

Holmes was convicted of murdering 12 people and trying to murder 70 others three years ago inside a midnight Batman movie in suburban Denver. Jurors rejected his insanity plea.

Veronica was the youngest victim, shot four times.

Her mother struggled to explain what she missed most about her.

"Everything. Her smile, her laugh, the way she was my little silly-billy ... always trying to make people happy," Moser said.

Moser had an ultrasound scan hours before she and Veronica went to the theater with friends. Veronica was excited about becoming a big sister, Moser said, though she might not have fully grasped what that meant.

Now 28, Moser said she suffers from depression and anxiety so severe that she sometimes didn't leave the house.

Veronica's grandfather, Robert Sullivan, told jurors she showed promise even as a child.

"There's only six years there, but you can see the seeds of great potential," he said. "She was a sweetheart."

But the family stories often left jurors in tears. A defense attorney said she saw seven jurors crying during Moser's testimony. The judge said he saw only two cry, and not excessively, dismissing concerns that their emotions would overwhelm the facts.

Caren Teves, who lost her firstborn in the shootings, told jurors her agonizing grief has devolved into constant pain. "It's God-awful. It's horrific. I miss everything about him," Teves said.

She glared at Holmes. He swiveled in his chair.

"I did not realize that grief turned into physical pain," she said. "It hurts your entire being, but it also gives you physical pain. I'm in pain every day."

Teves said the stress of her son's murder has accelerated her Parkinson's disease. He was athletic, intelligent and thoughtful, she said.

"He made you feel good about yourself," she said. "It was a very unique thing he could do: Whenever you left him, you just wanted to be a better person."

Nineteen-year-old Cierra Cowden laughed between her tears as she described her father's personality and the emotional wounds caused by his death. "I just feel like my family's broken," she said.

Gordon Cowden, a 51-year-old father of four, was the oldest killed. He was patient and charming, and so kind that he once stopped their car to herd a prairie dog to safety.

In the mornings, he would awaken his children with a kind of reveille, singing "dit-dit-dittle-ee," his daughter testified. "I used to dread that sound, but I'd like to hear it now."

Defense attorney Rebekka Higgs asked jurors not to "answer death with death," insisting that the crimes were caused by the psychotic breakdown of a mentally ill young man. Life without parole is the morally appropriate response, she said.

After a gunman attacked a movie theater audience in Tennessee and was killed by a SWAT team on Wednesday, Samour advised jurors to avoid all news until the Colorado trial is over. He didn't mention the Tennessee incident, but he told jurors to ignore reports of any incidents similar to the Colorado shootings.